Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Originally posted this in jere's thread (http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … 7046#p7046), but wanted to start a new thread as I sense not everyone will read to the end of older threads. Also, Jason, thank you again for making this wonderful game; it's the most intellectually engaging experience I've have in a long time.

Additional suggestions: can we get voltage triggers and similar tiles with different facings, wired walls that run in one direction, and j/t shaped wires? That would really open up some possibilities...

Why not combine noise, fuel, and heat? They would compliment each other in creating practical/soft limits depending on a robber's priorities (scout? brute force? conserve money?) and restore more tension on the robber's side without, I feel, making the (rich) home owner too complacent. Fuel would limit tools to a reasonable amount, BUT with fuel alone there is no reason a patient (and rich) robber could not just make multiple consecutive trips instead of one big one with fewer tools. Tools $200 or less could cost 1 second; $400 tools would cost 2 seconds, $800 4 seconds, $1200 8 seconds, $2400 12 seconds. It's likely using tools would still save a robber time over puzzling out a trap, but this would force robbers to be very strategic about what they bring, how much they bring, and how often they use it.

Heat (like a mini-chill) is a bit separate, but I think it is necessary to compliment fuel and noise. The second (and so far only) successful robbery on my house was due to the robber making 4-5 consecutive trips with all the tools he could carry. Even if you limit the time and tools a robber can use, there still is little to no downside for a robber who keeps rushing back to your house and locking you out of it. I doubt it's Jason's intent for top players to obsessively keep trying to get into their house once they notice the same robber is hitting their place. Since there are no real-time notifications to tell you when you've been robbed or when the robber has left, heat to keep a specific robber away for, say 10-15 or 30-60 minutes from a particular house after each robbery will at least give the home owner a window of opportunity to view the video and one shot to alter or strengthen their defenses (assuming they have enough money).

Even with these three mechanics, there is still little stopping a sufficiently skilled, equipped, and persistent robber from pulling a successful heist. I prefer 30-60 minute heat because even combined with the limits of fuel and noise, it allows a persistent robber several chances to break into the house, assuming a player is at work or otherwise unable to check on their house more than once or twice a day. (9 hours away is effectively up to 17 or 8 chances, which I think is more than reasonable even with fuel and noise restrictions, considering there will be MULTIPLE robbers going after top houses). This creates tension on the side of the home owner as well as you'll need to be playing for at least 20 minutes to notice/check if someone returns with more tools and/or gets further into the house. Even if you do react, what do you change or strengthen? Then you'll need to wait and watch again... The fuel mechanic will always allow a sufficiently rich robber (and I think there would be enough of them) to go for broke after enough scouting runs, so no home owner can ever feel completely safe. 20-30 minute heat may be the best balance for robbers and home owners.

An added bonus is that you are now not only competing against the home owner, but also other robbers to be the first to successfully crack a house; at this point it's more about who is the first to have enough money to brute force a given house. I get the point Jason's trying to make about insecurity being the theme of this game, but it shouldn't have to translate into being tethered to your computer and being constantly logged into the game. That's obsessive and shouldn't be necessary.

Also, I noticed that idle players are not kicked out of their house with changes unsaved, but killed; is this only for people with starter houses or anyone? Especially without a warning, it's a bit unfair to someone who's lost their internet connection or who's legitimately been engrossed in beefing up their house defenses.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

You will only be killed by the server if you lose the connection or are idle while in someone else's house or during a self test. If you get kicked out while in build mode you will simply be booted to the house list and lose any progress you had made to the house since the last self test.

I'm pretty sure the next update will fix it so that it is easier to reconnect if for some reason the Internet is lost during a robbery.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Thanks josh! Also, thinking about my proposal, a "heat" timer of 10+ minutes would raise an interesting meta game counter- the heist (maybe there has not been enough impetus to do this yet with brute forcing, but even without adopting my suggestion to combine heat, noise, and fuel, this would make robbing richer houses much more viable for less rich players).

A team of several robbers coordinating via castledraft could map out and break into a house. Of course, if too many die, they will have to focus on another house, and a heist raises several issues revolving around skill and trust. The closer they get to cracking the safe, the more incentive there is to lie on the map so as to swoop in and get it yourself. Then your former team has to figure out who you are based on your net worth bump in order to teach you a lesson and get the money back. Maybe you have to self-identify first via paintings/net worth and sharing house blueprints. Or you have to convince them it was an honest mistake.

In the long term, it is better to rotate who gets the safe, but what if it's found out of order? Staying in order means you will stay solvent enpugh to continue as a team, but leaving the safe risks giving up the safe to someone else/another band of thieves.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Honestly, I don't know if the player base will get large enough to support this, or if Jason can come up with a way to disrupt their formation because it kind of goes against the theme of his game, but the logical extension of heist cooperation would be thieves' guilds (5-10 people). Makes sense to me: you have enough players to overcome the disadvantages of a heist-sized group: enough vets get together to pull heists, support players who die or need money, and punish players who break the rules or the poor solo bastards who break into a guild member's house. You would even have different roles: the bankers, who passively collect bounties and fund active robbers (enforcers), and people who do both. They would rob each others' houses regularly to distribute any gains and maintain trust. The next step? Guild wars! This would result in a hierarchy of of players: cooperative hardcore, hardcore solo/cooperative average players, average solo players, and newbies.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

i think the current wiring system is a good balance. you can already have some INSANE electronics in the provided space.the reason i like the + wire walls as the only option is it gives you a decision to make. secure, spaced out wiring versus unsecure, tightly packed wiring.

again, rotating voltage switches would unleash a whole new world of possibilities for space saving (voltage triggers that connect to voltage triggers that connect to voltage triggers that connect to voltage triggers who like boys who like girls) and we'd have even more super insane electronics.

the electronics right now are at a good level i think. they can be so complex that i am completely baffled as to how they work, but i can poke and edit at them and make them do what i want with trial and error.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Personally I would love the electronics to evolve a bit, adding new possibilities for minimizing circuits and making them far complicated and longer (like increasing the setting for max size for loops etc..), but as it is now, its a lot to learn for new players and there are sooo many things you can do that can be extremely complicated. I doubt this side of things would be changed, it would be nice tho.

If I vanish it's not due to a burglar shooting me as well as my wife while making his way to the vault....I'm just a burst player.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Kinda like a chill, but shorter.... maybe it could be as simple as: how long did you stay in the house last time you robbed it? Well, the police are investigating it for that long now.

So, the longer the robbery, the longer the "heat," up to the full 20 minutes allowable for a robbery (where you'd have to wait 20 minutes before doing it again).

So, this would allow quick scouting trips without much penalty, but really slow down big heists from happening over and over right in a row (giving both the owner, and other robbers, a chance at the house in between).

I think this change could happen server-side with no explanation given in the client... essentially, just a force-ignore put in place for X minutes after a robbery (house goes off the list for that one client only... everyone else in the game can see it still).

I didn't see you actually EXPLAIN the "noise" mechanic above, but I'm guessing that it would just take time off of the robbery for each tool that you used? Or some tools are noisier? So, you'd have 20 minutes, but then using a saw would remove 4 minutes from your remaining time or something? The problem with this is that the server sets your time limit and then lets you go... so you don't tell the server "I just used a saw"... so the server wouldn't know that your time limit should be reduced.

We've talked about fuel before (more like a monetary surcharge), but we hadn't considered tying it to robbery time like this.... I'm not sure it's the best way to do it, though. I mean, if you're bringing more tools, you'll be moving faster anyway, right?

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Kinda like a chill, but shorter.... maybe it could be as simple as: how long did you stay in the house last time you robbed it? Well, the police are investigating it for that long now.

So, the longer the robbery, the longer the "heat," up to the full 20 minutes allowable for a robbery (where you'd have to wait 20 minutes before doing it again).

So, this would allow quick scouting trips without much penalty, but really slow down big heists from happening over and over right in a row (giving both the owner, and other robbers, a chance at the house in between).

I think this change could happen server-side with no explanation given in the client... essentially, just a force-ignore put in place for X minutes after a robbery (house goes off the list for that one client only... everyone else in the game can see it still).

I didn't see you actually EXPLAIN the "noise" mechanic above, but I'm guessing that it would just take time off of the robbery for each tool that you used? Or some tools are noisier? So, you'd have 20 minutes, but then using a saw would remove 4 minutes from your remaining time or something? The problem with this is that the server sets your time limit and then lets you go... so you don't tell the server "I just used a saw"... so the server wouldn't know that your time limit should be reduced.

We've talked about fuel before (more like a monetary surcharge), but we hadn't considered tying it to robbery time like this.... I'm not sure it's the best way to do it, though. I mean, if you're bringing more tools, you'll be moving faster anyway, right?

Hi Jason,

Thanks! I can't take credit for originating the ideas of heat, noise (which is why I didn't explain it ), or fuel; I saw them on other threads (but I will gladly take credit for combining them).

Regular Heat: I was thinking of heat as a fixed time for any failed robbery and combining it with the other mechanics, but it's certainly possible (and thematically sound) to set it to the amount of time one's spent in a house (and/or the amount of tools used/brought- evidence, you know). I gave two ranges of time (10-15 or 30-60 minutes) because I wasn't sure what would be optimal for game balance, and the two ranges were supposed to be more favorable for either the robber or home owner, respectively. I'm personally in favor of a heat time of 10-30 minutes because this should give two or three other robbers a shot at the house in the meanwhile- the homeowner is by no means protected!

Big Heat: after 3-5 attempts block out an individual robber for, say, 6-8 hours- thematically, neighbors and police will start to notice someone who keeps coming back). Let them try again later in the day or the next day- other robbers will have a crack at the same (presumably lucrative) house and the homeowner will have a chance to respond.

Noise: Your guess regarding what I meant by noise is correct. It's unfortunate that this appears unimplementable since there is no communication with the server, though. This still leaves wide open the problem of someone with enough tools not only brute forcing a house but also wrecking it out of spite or just to burn through his tools.

Fuel: Finally, regarding fuel, I think the way it was originally suggested was quite good and wasn't offering any changes to it.

Wheelbarrow burden: Dock the amount of time one has to work through the house based on the amount of tools one brings. Makes thematic sense and provide extra incentive for a player to only bring what they'll need (this could compliment or replace the fuel surcharge). Think about it: even with a wheelbarrow (or several), hauling around 800 things is going to slow you down, right?

Also, I think it's quite fair to give a person 20 minutes to solve a house if they're not relying on brute force, but deducting time based on the expense and amount of tools (either on a linear or geometric scale) is reasonable, because you're not going to need 20 minutes to brute force someone's house- 5 minutes maybe, 10 tops. This will also discourage malicious razing of someone's house or hunting down a person's family (who does that in real life, anyway? hardly anyone)- just grab the goods and go!

With these changes, in the space of 1-2 hours (which is probably a reasonable play session) a robber can make several raids and at any point still go to town with all the tools he wants, but there are soft limits (time and money) which will force him to think more tactically. A skilled, lucky, persistent, or rich enough enough robber will still succeed, but this gives other robbers and the homeowner a shot. What do you think, Jason?

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

I do not like the idea of Big Heat. If the houseowner do not possess appropriate commit gates, he should be punished for such a design. It in fact encourages the idea of one large heist with massive tools - the one of problem trying to be fixed - over multiple trips of ~20 items to figure out how house works one by one. Can you explain how it solves the brute force? If it's intention is to allow chance for homeowner and other robber to enter the house, 5~30 minute is eternity on the server.

I like the addition of transportation cost after reaching certain # of items the most, honestly. Straightforward financial punishment for carrying large amount of tools.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

So, the reason I thought the "heat time" should be based on the amount of time in the last robbery is so that very short scouting trips are still okay (peek in, see some dogs, come back in a second with drugged meat). I WANT to encourage scouting and tactical tool choices like that.

More tools = less time is pretty sensible in many ways, and is super easy to implement on the server. Effectively, like you're moving slower with all that weight! And then scouting tool-free can be given the most time.

It could be pretty crazy for a really big heist.... like you come in with all these tools, but 30 seconds left, right from the start! Quick, cut through them walls!

There's also the option to make "heat" come in the form of faster police response next time. So, there's no delay before you can rob again, but if you pop back in immediately after a long robbery, the sirens start sooner than they would otherwise.

Or... it's like you have 20 full minutes from the moment you enter the house to "finish it," no matter how many times you leave.

Example:

1) come into house, have full 20 minutes, but leave after 4 minutes.2) Back home for tools, spending 1 minute.3) return to target house, have 15 minutes left, leave after 10 minutes.4) Back home for more tools, spending 2 minutes.5) return to target, have 3 minutes left, leave at the bell.6) Must wait 20 minutes now before going back in.

Though this would require an N^2 tracking table on the server (how much time left for each player in each house) and is kinda messy.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

ventuswings wrote:

I do not like the idea of Big Heat. If the houseowner do not possess appropriate commit gates, he should be punished for such a design. It in fact encourages the idea of one large heist with massive tools - the one of problem trying to be fixed - over multiple trips of ~20 items to figure out how house works one by one. Can you explain how it solves the brute force? If it's intention is to allow chance for homeowner and other robber to enter the house, 5~30 minute is eternity on the server.

I like the addition of transportation cost after reaching certain # of items the most, honestly. Straightforward financial punishment for carrying large amount of tools.

Big Heat will give a robber several shots at casing a house (and the robber can be casing several houses at once), culminating in a final chance where he has to decide, given the amount of money he has left, whether he can find and crack the vault in time with the tools he thinks he'll need. Then the homeowner has a chance to rebuild/redesign his house (possibly in response to several robbers at once) and other robbers will have a chance at the house. Currently, a robber only needs enough time and money to constantly retreat and eventually reach a safe; he can always bring more tools to bust any commit gates he's scouted. This will cost the homeowner time and money as well- remember, he gets no tools unless a robber actually dies. It's a nice parallel, I think.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

jasonrohrer wrote:

So, the reason I thought the "heat time" should be based on the amount of time in the last robbery is so that very short scouting trips are still okay (peek in, see some dogs, come back in a second with drugged meat). I WANT to encourage scouting and tactical tool choices like that.

More tools = less time is pretty sensible in many ways, and is super easy to implement on the server. Effectively, like you're moving slower with all that weight! And then scouting tool-free can be given the most time.

It could be pretty crazy for a really big heist.... like you come in with all these tools, but 30 seconds left, right from the start! Quick, cut through them walls!

There's also the option to make "heat" come in the form of faster police response next time. So, there's no delay before you can rob again, but if you pop back in immediately after a long robbery, the sirens start sooner than they would otherwise.

Or... it's like you have 20 full minutes from the moment you enter the house to "finish it," no matter how many times you leave.

Example:

1) come into house, have full 20 minutes, but leave after 4 minutes.2) Back home for tools, spending 1 minute.3) return to target house, have 15 minutes left, leave after 10 minutes.4) Back home for more tools, spending 2 minutes.5) return to target, have 3 minutes left, leave at the bell.6) Must wait 20 minutes now before going back in.

Though this would require an N^2 tracking table on the server (how much time left for each player in each house) and is kinda messy.

Why not start the heat timer after, say, 15-30 seconds? That's a reasonable time to scout and see what tools you'll need initially; any longer and folks are probably not just scouting.

Also, no penalty for the first 3-5 tools; that's how much a person could carry on their person and enough for a second, more in-depth scouting run. But then you'd have to wait a bit, which would be fine because you're reviewing what you've scouted.

What about a cumulatively increasing Big Heat score, a function of how many times you've raided a house within a certain amount of time. A Big Heat point drops after, say, 12 or 24 hours; the first one makes you wait 0 minutes, the second 1 minute, the third 3 minutes, the fourth 5 minutes, the fifth 15 minutes, the sixth 30 minutes, the seventh 60 minutes, the eighth 120 minutes, and so forth. I like that because at first, it's not a problem (people will want to plan around what they've discovered anyway), but after a certain point you're being punished for not scouting effectively or efficiently (because if there's no penalty for many fast raids with few tools, that's exactly what players will do). Bored? Review your notes, go have dinner, or go case other houses.

Yeah, imagine you're walking in, armed to the teeth and with the sirens already blaring- that would be a tense, high stakes raid! I think an effective result of this is forcing the robber to find at least part of the safe path via scouting to save time and money later, instead of just brute forcing. Maybe a timer and fuel surcharge at the loadout screen?

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

GoogleFrog wrote:

I don't think we need big heat. People seem to brute force blind.

Personally I like Big Heat because it gives robbers a soft cap on how often they can raid a place in a given time and allows the home owner to respond, which is currently something that IMHO is unbalanced. Where is the challenge, the tension on the robber's side? I work a regular job and would prefer to enjoy the challenge of the game without letting it detract from others aspects of my life. Jason can always leave the value fairly generous at first and then tighten it.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

So, registered just for this discussion.I was on board with the fuel option discussed in the last thread.I also really like the "more tools=less time" option. It is Glorious! It simply means the more skilled you are at brute forcing and knowing mechanics, the more tools you can bring. Essentially a more skill = more reward option, but I still think this hurts the poor in one way. The poor are going to have less sprawling complex, so you can brute force a cheaper house with less time. You could argue that they won't use more tools than what they may gain, but this is also the game where we have seen people go and kill a family and destroy everything AFTER finding a vault.

What if we combined the two and added the heat option to promote scouting? For fuel maybe a 2% instead of the 5% that was suggested for each item? Make the increase start after say 3 or 5 of a tool instead of just 1? This "soft" cap of tools means that it is better to carry a good variety of tools instead of just trying to tear down every wall. For heat make it so that you have 15 seconds free, after that it starts to count, and for certain values it locks you out for a certain amount of time. I would say it shouldn't be linear, like only a minute for up to 30 or 45 seconds, then another for 60, but then for every 5 seconds after add a minute until it hits a cap of like 20 min? It's no longer a scouting trip if you are probing every defense, it's a full fledged break in at that point.As far as the "more tools=less time", it is pretty self explanatory. The more you rely on crutches, the better at the game you will need to be. If you don't know typical trap set ups or layouts then trying to brute force will leave you with not enough time to succeed. It will force the player to make yet another calculated risk before even heading to the house, time or tools?

Now it would take LOTS of money, a scouting trip, and quick thinking and knowledge of the game mechanics to successfully brute a house, instead of just loading up, picking a house, and winning.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

For Big Heat, a color-coded scheme (yellow for 5 min or less, light orange for 5-15 min, dark orange for 15-60, red for 60+ min) and a message about the cops still being at the crime scene.

For wheelbarrow burden, first 5 free, 6-15 1x a set multiplier, 16-25 1.3 x set multiplier, 26-35 1.6 x set multiplier, etc. So you can bring a lot of tools but more than 50 or so, you've got say 3-5 minutes to use them.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

protox13 wrote:

GoogleFrog wrote:

This is sounding quite complicated. I like elegant systems.

We're all ears, then. What's your proposal?

Let's just see how much of a effect 'more tools = less time' update have, then add more system if necessary. I am rather cautious about dumping bunch of new systems with varying foreseen and unforeseen consequences on a single patch.

Re: Countering brute forcing with heat, noise, and fuel

ventuswings wrote:

protox13 wrote:

GoogleFrog wrote:

This is sounding quite complicated. I like elegant systems.

We're all ears, then. What's your proposal?

Let's just see how much of a effect 'more tools = less time' update have, then add more system if necessary. I am rather cautious about dumping bunch of new systems with varying foreseen and unforeseen consequences on a single patch.

Without Big Heat or an equivalent, fuel and wheelbarrow burden will not prevent a robber from making several consecutive attempts at cracking a house- it's just spread out over several trips instead of one big one. Fundamentally, a rich robber is still unstoppable. Given enough time and money a robber can still be confident that he can crack a house with no fear of death or being beaten to it by other robbers, which IMHO is unbalanced. Other robbers and the homeowner are left out in the cold.